Sacrifice at Boulder
by Tribal Ghost Story
Summary: The heroes that fought their way into NCR history and legend never truly had their stories told. A lonely holotape stowed up in a crumbling storefront building wills itself to shed light on a few particular heroes and their struggle in the first battle for the Hoover Dam.


_Sacrifice at Boulder_

The old-world town of Boulder was torn to rubble and ash during the first battle for Hoover Dam. Dust in the wind it seemed. At least, to me it did. From what I had heard of the place, many people had lost their lives in the city during the bloody battle a few years ago; back when Caesar's Legion troops weren't afraid to hit the Northern California Republic with all of their might instead of deploying more alternative tactics.

I had just left the 188 trading post to drop off some scrap parts I'd scavenged when I'd make a short trip to Boulder City. The town was right by Hover Dam which provided a lot of the electricity in the Mojave. I did my research on the place and figured it could be a good stop after reading "A sight worth seeing" in a pamphlet a trader gave me. I had my always-faithful, floating robotic friend with me to slow me down.

"C'mon, ED-E." I called to my floating eyebot companion. ED-E retorted with a two low beeps that sounded like a "_Nuh-uh_". I gave him an irritated but sympathetic sigh. We'd taken precautions when entering new towns ever since we went through the nightmare of Nipton. The piles of burned bodies, heads of the deceased on pikes and crucified inhabitants still alive but barely scarred me enough to never want to go back there. It didn't squander my sense of adventure though.

"Oh, come on. Boulder is smaller than Nipton. Legion wouldn't even bother with it," I said. ED-E gave me an acknowledging beep but stayed put. I felt ED-E was acting on self-preservation. Him processing what Legion scouts did to the citizens of Nipton conceivably gave him the notion that Legion soldiers weren't kind to machines as well, perhaps even more brutal. ED-E was always strange like that; I even started to treat him as if he had empathy.

"Alright, you can come with me or stay here." I was confident in guessing which option he would chose. I began walking away in the direction of Boulder and stopped when I was answered with a gracious-like hum from my spherical companion that sounded distant. I turned around in time to see ED-E swivel to look away from me, floating idly. It always disappointed me when I guessed right with him, but I know most of his weaknesses.

"So you're going to stay here?" He responded with a beep and a type of floating-head nod.

"In the middle of nowhere?" He beeped once more.

"With the coyotes and radscorpions?" He replied with a whir that signified his disregard for my question. I've seen him handle a few measly dogs and larger than average bugs before.

"What about… Deathclaws?" ED-E froze and beeped before he jolted and raced towards my side. He paused for a second before beeping at me in a furious manner.

"I'm not trying to scare you," I lied. "But you know how much I hate leaving you alone." ED-E gave me a reprimanding buzz along with a series of whirrs and high timbre beeps that didn't sound as if they were meant to be a kind. I raised an eyebrow to him. Such foul language…

"I should stop cursing around you," I said, raising an eyebrow along with a smirk. He shoved off the comment with an irate beep.

"Don't be that way," I said. After calming my companion down a little, I started to explain that I wanted to see more of the town because…

"I'm not sure why." I replied. ED-E gave me a blank stare. "I'm just curious." He shook his spherical frame while giving a sigh-like whirr and followed me.

I walked toward the city (I was just at its eastern outskirts) in the early morning looking at an old-world billboard that faced me. It had a slightly humorous invitational greeting and a picture of the Hoover Dam together with some graffiti that clearly supported the NCR and Rangers.

As I walked further on, I made note of the NCR memorial, a large smooth slab of stone jutting from the ground, honoring the servicemen and women who died in the fighting in Boulder City as I passed it. The names of the one hundred and seven NCR soldiers were engraved on the back of the stone. I was sure that the losses on the Legion's side were far greater. So many lives lost, and in the same manner of which the old world had died; fighting over resources. I kept my opinions to myself about the NCR and Legion, but I did know that without one another, they'd crumble and die over time until a new power rose to challenge them. Like the never ending cycle of life and death; a cycle that sickened me but one that I knew all too well.

The town wasn't much. A little saloon lay near the memorial itself which was really the only immediate building safely accessible and was not falling apart. A road ran through the city and on to the Dam but was blocked at its right turn further down the street. I walked in between two mounds of sandbags and stopped to look around. There was a large pile of debris to the right of me and beyond that were bones of pre-War buildings. I presumed they were the fallen structures of the town that once made it into a city. "A sight to see" my ass… To the left of me were two brick buildings connected to each other. The one on the far right looked like it had shielded the other from a blast as opposed to the pile of stone chunks that once formed a similar structure to the right of the damaged building.

"Must've been hell here." I said aloud. ED-E gave a puzzled beep.

"The first fight over the Dam." I answered. He gave an acknowledging buzz, seemingly agreeing with me.

I was probably right. I pitied the Legionaries who died in Boulder. Caesar didn't honor his fallen as individuals. Their names died with them, if they had names, and were likely remembered by no one. I could only assume that many of the bodies that had lain in Boulder during that time of the battle were incinerated by the blasts of the bombs that caused the damage to the town, or were at least moved after the battle by the remaining NCR.

Not many houses and buildings of the city were still left standing from the explosives. However, out of all of the buildings to catch my eye, one seemed to call out to me. The damaged structure was made of a red brick and fit between two other crumbled bases of once-had-been buildings that might have also looked like it. The building itself had marble trim over its front door. The door was mostly blown apart with only the lower half of it clinging to its hinges. The (storefront, I'd wager) fixed windows were shattered, leaving only a few jagged slates of glass in the nooks of the edifice's window ceils.

At the base of the busted door were two skeletons. Both were human. From what I could make of it by using my imagination, they must have been running to get inside of the building but were stopped at the door by something. ED-E gave me a wary beep as I began to move the half-opened door. I turned to face him.

"I'm sure it's fine. No one really seems to care around here," I riposted. ED-E looked around and then at me as if he was confused.

"It's a joke, ED-E," I told him. "There is no one around." He replied with a blank stare. I was pretty sure he didn't understand the concept of a joke.

"Whatever," I shrugged. "Let's have a look inside."

There was a staircase right in front of me as I first entered. To the left of me was an open room with piles of rubble in its corners and a doorway further back that led to another room. I went to check out what was beyond the doorway before going upstairs; a small closet-like room to the right of me and a back door that led outside to my front. The door was gone, however. It was an open doorway to the outside. It must have been torn off. There were no other remnants of bodies on the first floor other than at the base of the staircase. It was single skeleton body that looked as if it had fallen down the stairs. ED-E beeped at me.

"There's nothing stopping me from going upstairs. You might as well follow." I replied. ED-E was not keen on this little adventure. Coming across a trap was not on his agenda nor was invading the privacy of some death-dealing monstrosity.

The staircase was very constrictive with walls on both sides. At the top of the stairs were two more skeletal remains and an opened decorative door with one of its two glass panes busted out and the other panel only slightly damaged. Inside of the room was a surprising scene: six skeletons lay inside. Three were lying right after the door and the other three were in another room (there was once a room divider due to the presence of an entryway and door frame in the middle of the room and excessive amounts of rubble lying around). There wasn't much of a ceiling left, letting in enough light to see a hat. It wasn't a hat like any of the pre-War ones I'd found before. It was a NCR Ranger's hat, similar to an old-world park ranger's hat but newer. It rested next to a skeleton I could deduce was the late owner of the hat. Next to the remains, I found a holotape nearby it. A holotape, a thin white square with a few transparent viewpoints that revealed two small reels inside it, was practically indestructible. ED-E gave an interested beep as I picked the holotape up.

"It still looks playable." I said. ED-E gave a long whistle-like beep.

"Yeah, I know. I've found enough of these to know that they can survive through anything, though." I answered back.

I played the holotape with a player I had and listened closely. It sounded like a radio transmission. It was a woman's voice. From what I could tell, the transmission was recorded into two parts because of the way the woman's voice was loud and adrenaline-pumped at first then was solemn and calm at the last part.

"I guess I should have expected something like that." I said somberly. ED-E gave me an easing buzz. My thoughts started to wander.

"I wonder what it was like for them knowing they were going to die." I looked around and saw a military-grade knife sitting near the doorway of the fallen room divider. I picked it up, holding the knife with a firm grip.

"I might have an idea how…"

**-o-0-o-**

Screams of the dying and battle cries of the fearless filled the air around Hoover Dam. For one Ranger, it was nothing but fuel for combat. The day was a day to shove the Legion into a corner, but the NCR army and Rangers were falling back, away from the Dam as a tactical retreat. First Recon troopers were covering the retreating soldiers but soon had to fall in with the withdrawal themselves, however, most of those sharpshooters would be going off to their long range sniping positions to start picking off targets directly on the Dam.

The Ranger knew that those few remaining NCR troopers that had stayed behind to defend the Dam were long since dead. It was a tragedy, but one to take vengeance on in her eyes.

"Lutz!" one of her squad members' voices rang out. "They're right behind us!"

"Just keep running, Private!" another one of her team yelled.

The Ranger, Teresa Lutz, ran with her squad across a bridge away from the Dam heading towards Boulder City, which held an explosive trap for the Legion's warriors. The main part of the battle would be in the city to draw in most of the enemy forces. After that happened, there would be another tactical retreat before the city was blown to hell along with the Legionnaires caught in the explosion, ensuing a counter-attack on the Legion to push them off the Dam. All the while, the main force of the First Recon would take out officers behind the Legion's ranks of men, specifically the high ranking officers. Caesar's Legion's tactics consisted of putting their weakest first, wearing their enemy down until they bring in more veteran and uniformed units to finish off what the pawns had left. The tactic was obvious and gave the NCR a large advantage as far as knowing what to expect. With snipers taking down Legion officers, the forward units would be in complete disarray.

Ranger Lutz and her team made a left after the bridge coming from the Dam and into the outskirts of Boulder City with the rest of the platoon. Many of the NCR troopers had already been stationed in the city to provide fire support for the retreating troopers then defend for a time before going through with the trap for the Legion, or launch a counter-attack if the Dam was somehow able to hold.

Ranger Lutz saw a lightly fortified building in between two other buildings as soon as she was close to the city. It looked like as good a place as any to set up and start gunning down the Legion soldiers. Seeing the red berets of a few First Recon snipers in the windows of one of the tallest buildings in the city really gave her a sense of power and security despite being an officer of the NCR herself. The sharpshooters of First Recon did more than just take out the enemy from a distance; they gave the troopers around them a morale boost. For Lutz, it wasn't just herself and the Legion this time.

She commanded her team to enter the red bricked building from the rear.

"Corporal," she called. "Board up this door and the one in front. We don't want Legion hounds up our asses."

"Yes ma'am!" Corporal Marcus Christensen said before doing the task he was issued. Without hesitation, and a snap of his service rifle, he got to work with two other troopers who already held strong planks of wood in their arms.

"Private, get upstairs and keep an eye out for Legion coming up the road," Lutz ordered, giving Private Jeffery Hui something to do. The Private nodded nervously. She could tell he was scared and anxious from the look in his eyes when he pulled his helmet up out of his face. The Ranger didn't mind it though; the Private was a fine shot. His remarkable ability to keep up a consistency with headshots impressed even her. However, given his experience level, he was not yet bound for First Recon. Before the Private started up the stairs with his NCR issued service rifle and one-size-too-big shambled armor, the Ranger shouted his name.

"Don't start shooting until I say." she reminded him. The Private gave a jumpy nod and ran up the stairs, nearly stumbling as he got to the top. The Ranger shook her head.

"Still just a kid," she mumbled. Ranger Lutz turned and commanded the rest of her team to their positions. She ordered the stockpile of munitions they carried with them be set in various places to be easily accessible. Ranger Lutz knew the rest of her platoon was all dug in throughout the rest of the city, but she wanted to make sure that she and her team could easily get out of but also easily defend the building. The two other buildings filled with troopers on either side and across the street of her gave her comfort in the thought that she and her team were not alone.

Ranger Lutz heard a yell from upstairs, following the Private's face poking around the corner of the doorway at the top of the stairs.

"They're here! Right down the road!" the Private hollered. Ranger Lutz suddenly felt a wave of exhilaration from a quick adrenalin rush. A chance to gun down more than one Legion soldier at a time was something she didn't take lightly as she checked that she had enough rounds in her repeater rifle.

''Alright, everyone! Get ready!" she ordered. "Corporal, with me upstairs." The Corporal nodded and followed.

There were two troopers already on the second floor, one of them being Private Hui. Ranger Lutz told him to get into the room at the front of the building and knock out the windows. The other trooper bashed out the rear window on the second floor and took up his position providing watch above the rear door.

"No one fires until they pile in the city," Ranger Lutz told her squad. The three troopers below gave a shout to signal their commanding officer they understood.

The Legion was close. The rumbling sound of the running enemy soldiers could easily be heard, but every NCR trooper held fast and dared not to move. Every one of them knew what was coming and were determined to give the Legion a knife in the gut.

The Legionaries quickly moved into the city wielding rusty blades and spears, disregarding any of their warriors who fell from a sniper's bullet as they went. Hundreds swept through the city like a wave of water; moving down the street as quickly as they could to get into the wasteland where they were hoping to meet the main force of the NCR.

"Fire!" Ranger Lutz screamed as she raised her repeater rifle to unleash a well-aimed barrage of bullets into the bodies of Legion soldiers. Barely a second after her first shot rang out, a hail of lead shot from the windows of the all of the buildings in the city, butchering Legion soldiers inside of the city already. Many more took their place, however, and those who survived the first wave of lead were already breaking down the doors and boarded up windows to buildings to get inside and slaughter all those inside. NCR troopers and Rangers continued to fire down upon the soldiers, continually adding to the pools of blood on the city's old-world streets and sidewalks.

Ranger Lutz saw Legionaries trying to bust down the door to the building across the street from hers. She instructed the Corporal and Private to aim their rifles with hers at the entrance. The Legion troops didn't even have enough time to step a foot inside of the building before being slaughtered by the semi-automatic weapons. Some nearby Legionaries got smart and threw explosive at the door before entering.

"Fuck!" Ranger Lutz could only imagine what happened after they went through that door. She watched out of her window and stared at the other building as the troopers who were firing from the top level of the building turned around to begin shooting within the building. Lutz could see flashes of light for a while, presumably from the troopers firing their weapons, but they soon died out. The troopers who had been firing from the top level were replaced with soldiers of the Legion using the now dead troopers' rifles and firing right at Lutz and her squad.

The NCR wasn't without its own offensives to take the pressure off the defending troopers inside of the buildings. Aside from NCR foot soldiers, Rangers, and First Recon shooters, there were the heavy troopers. Salvaged power-armor-clad soldiers with weapons almost as big as the man or woman wielding them and able to do more damage than a super mutant hyped up from a full bottle of Buffout.

A heavy trooper came from the northeast walking casually, passing by the house Ranger Lutz and her men were in, firing his weapon into the hoard of Legion recruits. The trooper had a modified light machine gun that was belt fed from a pack that hung off his shoulders. The power armor he wore reduced him to walking and slowly jogging through the streets as he laid waste to any and all enemy soldiers that ran into his kill zone; bullets pinged off of his thick armor. In the time of an eye blink, a Legionary had already pulled the pin of a grenade and threw it at the heavy trooper. The explosive landed at the trooper's feet and it looked like he knew it was there and braced himself. It went off with a loud bang and a cloud of dirt. The trooper was thrown into the side of a nearby home. The dirt settled to reveal the heavy trooper kneeling close to the ground. He was injured. The right leg plate on his armor was cracked and oozed blood. The trooper didn't falter, however. He raised his heavy weapon and continued to blaze it over any Legion soldiers he saw, limping as he did. A few of the Legionaries were already close to him, though. He was able to fire a few rounds and down some of the Legionaries before they knocked his weapon away and began prying at his helmet. Ranger Lutz and all of her men gave the trooper all the fire support they could to save him, but he was swamped with the bodies of Legionaries. The heavy trooper pulled out a knife and began jabbing at all who was around him, but it was hopeless as the soldiers attacking him jerked off his helmet, grabbed his long black hair and chopped through his neck, pulling his head off and triumphantly yelling through the streets of their kill. The trooper's body, spouting blood from the beheading, slumped down with a clink onto the street and joined the rest of the corpses.

"Fucking Legion pigs." Corporal Marcus gritted angrily though his teeth. Ranger Lutz could do nothing but watch the gruesome sight of the Legionaries flinging the decapitated head around and throwing it at her fellow troopers. It only made her angry and filled her with a killing rage, and it did the same to her own team of troopers.

"They're falling back!" a voice from below called out. Ranger Lutz almost felt a sigh of relief come in the hopes that she would get the chance to run down retreating enemy fighters but it was dashed away when the voice added that the NCR were in fact the ones who were falling back. To Ranger Lutz, that meant that she needed to get herself and her men out of the building and link up with the rest of the platoon before they left.

"Ranger Lutz! They're trying to get in!" the trooper positioned at the rear window yelled. He took his rifle and began shooting the Legionaries who approached the rear door, even leaning half of his body out of the window to get a better shot down below. Moments later, an explosion shook the rear of the structure and the trooper at the rear window began screaming. Ranger Lutz looked behind her through the doorway to see the troopers hands clasped on his face, blood pouring from between his fingers. Lutz ran to the trooper to sit him down and calm him and get a look at his injuries. His eyes were destroyed and a large piece of his cheek and lip were gone along with a piece of metal lodged into neck. The Ranger told the trooper not to move too much and rest. There wasn't much she could've done for him in that moment other than drag him over to the front of the building to her second floor firing position.

The Ranger could hear screaming coming from the lower level. The explosion at the rear must have meant that the enemy had blown the door off its hinges, nothing to stop them from rushing in and cutting down the stunned troopers on the first floor. Lutz rushed to the staircase door and looked down at the Legion soldiers already rushing up the stairs, blood on their feet. The unsettled Ranger quickly closed the door and locked it. Moments later, the door was being battered and beaten by strong hands on the other side. It wouldn't hold for long.

"We've got company!" Ranger Lutz called out to her two remaining troopers, Private Hui and Corporal Christensen, on the other side of the room's divider. Having to abandon everything that was going on outside of the building, the two troopers stopped firing from the front windows and turned around to take cover with their commanding officer at the doorway of the wall divider to aim their weapons at the staircase door. They waited for the door to open, even an inch.

"I'm going to radio headquarters. You two keep them off of this floor if that door comes open." Lutz commanded as she pulled out her radio. She turned it on and it responded with a burst of static.

"Hello? Can anyone hear me?" The Ranger asked through the radio. No reply. She turned on the radio's recording function as per protocol and began a transmission.

"We're cut off from the rest of the platoon and there are Legionnaires all over the place. There's no chance we can get out of here before they blow the town, so we're going to hold out against them as long as we can." The Ranger concluded and turned off the radio. The Corporal and the Private heard this. They weren't going down without a fight.

As soon as she picked her weapon up, the door to the staircase was busted open. Marcus and Jeffery unleashed a hailstorm of bullets at the invading Legionaries, cutting them down quickly. Lutz took Jeffery's place while he reloaded his weapon. The Legionaries coming through the doorway were all recruits with machetes. They were the first to go in to make the enemy spend their ammo and wear themselves out until the more experienced Legionaries came through to finish off anyone else who put up resistance. A crude tactic only to be used with a force that had large numbers of men to waste, but it worked. Ranger Lutz and her two men were already running low on ammo.

"Gotta' reload!" Corporal Marcus took cover behind the room divider and looked around for the ammo box only to find it was empty. He then looked for a spare clip on his ammo belt. He cursed when he found it held none. He remembered giving his side arm up when he was at the Dam.

"Shit, Lutz, I'm out of ammo!" he yelled.

"Take this and keep shooting!" she handed the Corporal her pistol and its magazines. A pained scream rang out beside her. Lutz turned to see Private Jeffery had been shot. Shot? The Legion saves their ammunition for their more experienced troops.

"A Vexillarius!" Lutz screamed as she began shooting at the veteran soldier's canine headdress. The Vexillarius ducked and let off a round from his rifle. It entered Lutz's lower torso and put her on the floor behind her. The Corporal yelled and fired off all the rounds in his weapon at the now dying Legion commander, the flag he carried on his back fell to the ground and lay in the blood of Legion.

"Lutz, are you okay?" the Corporal asked worriedly.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Ranger Lutz answered back with a wince.

"How about you, Private?" the Corporal asked.

"Gah!" Private Hui cried out. "It hurts." The Ranger looked over to the Private and saw that his right shoulder was completely blown out; the bullet that hit him went through the bone and shattered the joint. He started moaning in agony.

"Can you shoot, Jeff?" Lutz asked. He nodded, but he was clearly in pain as he bit his lower lip.

"I shoot with my right," he said. He gave a slight laugh filled with pain. The Private pulled out his pistol with his left and pulled off the safety.

"We'll get through this," she said. She looked over to the trooper who was guarding the rear window and received wounds to the face. She gave a sigh when she saw him lying on the floor unmoving.

"One way or another," she finished.

"Lutz, how many rounds you have left?" the Corporal asked, reloading his pistol and being mindful of any Legion soldiers making their way up the stairs.

"Whatever's left in the gun." Ranger Lutz replied. She tried to keep the sad tone out of her voice, but failed. All three of the troopers knew what was going to happen next.

"It's been an honor, Ranger." The words from Private Jeffery surprised Lutz.

"Same here." Corporal Marcus said keeping his eyes glued to the doorway. The fading pings of gunfire going off outside were ignored.

However, a grenade jumping through the nearby window interrupted their moment. Marcus quickly grabbed it and threw it back out. It exploded a moment later with the racket being followed by a scream of pain.

The next moment, they all heard a conjoined countdown from Legion troops outside. "Three… Two…One!"

Four grenades bounced into the room. All of the troopers grabbed a grenade and chunked it out of their adjacent window. The fourth, however, danced around before it was swiftly pounced on by Corporal Marcus. The grenade went off in the room right as his body landed on it, ripping Marcus in half and spattering the walls with a shade of crimson. The sound wave alone was enough to disorientate the Ranger and Private Jeffery. After they had opened their eyes and removed their hands from their ears, they gasped at the sight of their fallen comrade. To Ranger Teresa, Marcus was a trooper, a friend, and a hero. She looked away and tried to keep her priorities in check as she wiped away blood from her face.

"They'll send in a few of their soldiers to make sure we're dead." Lutz said to Jeffery. He was still recovering from shock.

"Private!" The Ranger, holding her own wound, went over to hit him across the face. "Snap out of it!" Private Jeffery looked at her in fright.

"Help me guard the door, trooper." Lutz said to her only remaining squad mate. He attempted to get up only to fall back down. He looked to his left leg to see a serrated piece of metal protruding from his knee. The grenade did more than just kill their fellow soldier.

"I won't be able to walk very well after this." Lutz looked back at him and then eyed his injured leg.

"I'll push you around in wheelchair after this is over." The Ranger smirked. Jeffery laughed nervously and scooted over to the doorway, taking cover behind the shorter side of the divider, further away from the entrails of the Corporal. A Legionary soldier came up the stairs cautiously. Private Jeffery raised his pistol and took the shot; the Legion pawn fell down the stairs with a hole in his head.

"Why don't they just throw more grenades up here and finish us?" Jeffery asked.

"Anger. They want to kill us in person," the Ranger replied.

After they spoke, the almost-silent footsteps of Legionaries could be heard coming up from the staircase top floor entrance.

"Get ready." Lutz whispered to Jeffery. Both got an eerie feeling about what was climbing up the stairs.

Three veteran Legionaries rushed around the corner of the entryway and sprinted over dead bodies toward the Private and the Ranger with spears and machetes in hand. The two troopers opened fire with what remaining ammunition they had in their weapons. The first of the three Legionaries fell hard to the ground while the other two, the first armed with a spear and the one behind with a freshly sharpened machete, charged at the defenders. Private Jeffery attempted to scuffle backwards, but was too slow as the Legionnaire drove his spear deep into Jeffery's chest. Hui's eyes widened at first, gripping the spear, but he closed his eyes shortly after. The Ranger took action before the Legionary could react to her unsheathing her knife and letting it glide through the neck of the enemy soldier. The other Legionary used his shoulder as a battering ram and knocked Ranger Lutz down to the ground. Lutz watched as the soldier began to arc his blade toward her face. She put up her arms and readied herself for a painful strike, but was surprised when her armored leather bracer had stopped the blow.

Lutz kicked the Legionary away from her, causing him to drop his blade, and grabbed her own to gain an upper hand. They both stood and sparred off. She noted that this Legion fighter, along with the other two that were killed, had better armor than the previous soldiers she'd seen, other than that Vexillarius soldier with the gun.

The Legionary didn't seem one for talk as Lutz taunted him. She charged in at him quickly with her knife, missing and being struck in the face by the enemy fighter's armored fist. It dazed her, but she got back up, knife in hand, and started to hit him with quick strikes from her knife. She was waiting for a chance to tackle him to the ground to get a better opportunity in putting the knife in his throat. The opportunity came to her as the Legionary jumped and tackled her to the ground. She easily gained the initiative while she and the soldier wrestled on the ground. Lutz was able to get on top of the soldier, holding him down with what weight she had, and attempted to stab at the Legionary's vulnerable neck.

The Legionary was experienced enough in hand-to-hand combat to catch Lutz's arm and grab and turn the knife around on her. The soldier kneed her in the side and succeeded in flipping her over and putting his weight on her while pushing the knife closer and closer to her neck. Lutz panicked and shoved her knee into a sensitive place on the soldier. His grip on the knife loosened and she was able to flip him over and bring the knife to his neck, putting all of her remaining strength behind the knife. Her enemy dared a move and punched her in the face again with an armored fist. Lutz lost her concentration and was flipped back over on her back with the Legionary on top of her holding the point of the knife to her neck once again. The blade was dangerously close to sliding into her throat, closer and closer to dealing death.

A shot rang out. The Legionary slumped down and a surprised Ranger Lutz pushed him off to the side. She looked to the doorway to see that Private Jeffery Hui, in the same position he'd been while defending the door, had his left arm raised and his pistol in his hand, and the spear still jutting out of his torso.

"Jeffery…" The Ranger began to say, but couldn't finish. The Private lowered his arm and let his pistol rest in his lap. His eyes closed as his head slumped forward to rest his chin on his chest.

It was only a matter of seconds before the hidden NCR bombs would blow and take everything inside of the city with it. Ranger Lutz knew her fate and turned on her radio. She flipped the recording switch and began to make a last will and testament. With a strengthening sigh, she began:

"If anyone gets this, I'd like to make sure that Private Jeffery Hui and Corporal Marcus Christensen are commended for their valor and sacrifice. Both have upheld the ideals and honor of the New California Republic with distinction." She paused before saying the next part; the ending.

"Ranger Teresa Lutz, out."

Teresa flipped off the recorder and pulled out the holotape. She grasped it in her hand and leaned her body up against the wall with the three windows. She could no longer feel the pangs of physical exhaustion any longer, even the hole in her gut, only numbness as she stared at the ceiling. Her life began to play out in her mind. She could see the house she had lived at during her years as a child; the house near Navarro that her father had paid all of his hard earned money for. The smile her father had was one that a person could trust was genuine at any moment. No one could tell from his ruggedness that he was a kindhearted individual who loved and cared for his family in spite of the destroyed and battered lands around him. The reason Teresa's mother married him was plain to see… She then thought of her mother who was a strong woman with a heart too big for her own good. Not too bad of a shot with a rifle either. She had taught Teresa all there was to kindness to others and how to treat every day like it was a gift and to cherish it, and also how to take it away with a rifle.

Ranger Lutz heard a loud blasting sound, but droned it out and closed her eyes. The Ranger began to see a bright light through her eyelids and sensed a burning feeling. She continued to ignore the outside world.

Teresa let her body relax. She continued to go through all of her memories, reliving them all as she went. Her skin began to leave her as the inferno burned her away. She didn't care, though. Death, when she had taken time to think about it and her life, seemed peaceful. She was ready to leave.

She was ready to die.

**-o-0-o-**

I stood there, listening to the holotape again.

"_Ranger Teresa Lutz, out."_

"Hm…" I murmured. ED-E let out a concerned beep. Coming from deep thought, I couldn't quite recount how many times I had replayed the holotape.

"Oh, it's nothing, ED-E," I told him. "Just thinking about the message."

"A sad thing," I said. I put the holotape back in its place as a form of respect that I knew didn't make much sense, but it seemed like the right thing to do. I picked myself up from kneeling, minding the ache in my knee. (I must've been listening to the tape for longer than I had thought.) I took in the scene once again as I walked my way to the door, being mindful of the skeletal remains of course. Before I started down the stairs, I took one last look behind me; the room was silent and still. Nothing but dust moved about the room. A quiet and serene place, considering all that I could guess had happened. I turned and quick-stepped down the stairs to the bottom floor.

ED-E followed as we exited the ruined red bricked building. I looked back at it in the dawning light of the sun. A spectacular sight, even if it was just an old building that would fall down at any time. It was a true tombstone for those soldiers who died inside, and it was withering away like the rest of the old-world; its past dying with the rest of the past. I could only hope that my own legacy would last after my death. It was something to think on, even if it was slightly depressing. I turned away and continued down the broken road out of Boulder City

**-o-0-o-**

After the explosions in Boulder City, the NCR army and Rangers swooped through the city and pushed back the remaining confused Legion forces across the Dam to gain a tactical victory, but at what cost? Was it worth countless lives for some simple resources? Even if the charged partials of electricity are valuable in the Mojave, millions- trillions of them don't seem to be worth a life…

War.

War never changes…

* * *

**Thanks for reading. **


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